Nicole Fruge

San Francisco Bay Area couple, Jennifer and Steve Kowalski, were desperate to create a child of their own but all the usual reproductive treatments failed. Across the world in India, a country theyad never visited, Manisha Parmar was running out of money and scrambling to provide for her children. These two families were brought together by the unlikeliest of circumstances: the lucrative and unregulated market of commercial surrogacy. On the promise that she would be paid more than anything she could earn on her own and a chance to give her children a future they otherwise could not have, Manisha carried the Kowalskisa child. "They need their child," Parmer said. "I need the money." This is the story of two familiesa shared journey in the new global economy. Surrogate Manisha Parmar tries to rest after receiving an intravenous line at the Akanksha Infertility Clinic in Anand, India. Dr. Nayna Patel said she was in spontaneous labor but Parmar delivered by Caesarean section later that day.